State of the Industry

In order for The BrandLab and our partners to effectively move forward in this work, we must track industry diversity rates and the progress made over time.

The BrandLab envisions a marketing and advertising industry that reflects the national demographics. We act towards this vision by supporting our partners in their diversity and inclusion journey. One part of our work is to hold our industry accountable by holding a mirror up. We do this with our State of the Industry report, a biennial study that is focused on collecting demographic data and looking at changes in diversity rates over time.

In 2014, we completed our first State of the Industry report. In partnership with Common Grounds– an interdisciplinary group of graduate students at the University of Minnesota– and 3M, we found that our Twin Cities marketing and advertising industry was comprised of just 6% people of color. Since then, we have continued to diversify, however, there is always more to be done. See below for our previous reports: